Octavia Hill Estates

Lord Phillips of Sudbury: My Lords, there is considerable dissent among church lawyers regarding the duties on the Church Commissioners concerning this estate. The Church Commissioners may have been advised that they have to maximise their returns in disposing of the premises. Might the Minister get the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General to cast his eye over the case of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford, who took the Church Commissioners to the High Court in 1991 on the issue? The judgment that came forth from the vice-chancellor gives a landmark guidance, which I suggest the Church Commissioners ought now to follow, with the consequences referred to by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Southwark.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, in moving the Motion standing in my name, I pay tribute to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and to all members of the committee for their work.
	This House prides itself on taking an evolutionary approach to change. That approach has been evident in consideration of the Speakership of this House. The issue was first raised in June 2003, considered by a Select Committee and reported on in November 2003, and debated in this House in January 2004 and July 2005.
	Following the debate in July last year, the House made an important decision. It resolved:
	"That this House should elect its own presiding officer;"—[Official Report, 12/07/05; col. 1002.]
	and that a Select Committee on the Speakership of the House be appointed to consider further how to implement this resolution, with full regard to the House's tradition of self-regulation. That committee has now done its job and has produced a report on how the House's decision could be implemented.
	I think the chairman and members of the committee have done something genuinely outstanding. Having started their inquiry with strongly held and differing views about the right way forward for the House on the issue of the Speakership, they have produced a unanimous report. I do not underestimate that achievement and thank all members of the committee for their hard work and dedication in this matter. They have done the House a great service in identifying a model for the Speakership around which a consensus can be built.
	Noble Lords will know from the speeches I have made in this Chamber, and from the evidence I gave to the committee that, in some respects, the committee's conclusions do not match my own views on the role of a Speaker in this House. There are some areas in which I would have gone further, but I am well aware of the strength of feeling and divergent views in this House. The committee has found a middle course which sits well with the traditions and history of the House while recognising the need to move forward.
	At the centre of the committee's proposals is a recognition and restatement of the importance of self-regulation to the culture and ethos of our House. In protecting that principle, the committee has crafted a role for a Speaker covering three distinct and important areas: a role in the Chamber; a role in the House, outside the Chamber; and a wider representational role, including public engagement. I attach great importance to all three areas and would like to address each in turn.
	The committee makes the important point:
	"It is odd that the Lord on the Woolsack should be the only member of the House who is prohibited from assisting"
	the House when procedural guidance is required. The committee proposed that an elected Speaker would spend more time in the Chamber, take the Chair in Committee of the Whole House and, like other Members of the House, give procedural guidance where appropriate. I share this view. As the House knows, I would have gone further and transferred the limited role performed by the Leader at Question Time to the Speaker. I do not share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that the authority of the Leader rests with the role performed by the Leader at Question Time. However, this is a matter for the House to decide and I am happy to abide by the will of the House. With respect to the role of the Speaker outside the Chamber, the committee proposed that the Speaker should become Chairman of the House Committee, a member of the Procedure Committee, take responsibility for security and become one of the three keyholders of Westminster Hall. I endorse these proposals.
	The committee also set out a role for the Speaker representing the House at home and abroad and acting as an apolitical spokesperson. The House will know that I am of the view that any Speaker should have a strong representational role and a strong role in public engagement. The committee also identified a number of other functions, which could be transferred to the Speaker, including in relation to Private Notice Questions, the application of the sub judice rule and authorising the recall of Parliament after consultation. In our debate in July I said that I do not consider having a presiding officer and self-regulation as mutually exclusive. I remain of that view. The committee has set out a role for a Speaker in this Chamber which not only preserves the principle of self-regulation in this House but has the capacity to enhance it by ensuring that it works.
	I will not go into the details of amendments standing in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, my noble friends Lord Barnett and Lady Gould, or the noble Lord, Lord Geddes. My Motion is clear: acceptance of the committee's report in its entirety. I recognise that there are some elements of the report which Members of this House will want strongly to support, and other elements which they may be willing to support. That is the nature of compromise, and it is for that reason that I will not be voting for any of the amendments put before the House today. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and the members of his committee have given us a workable solution, and I endorse it.
	Let me now turn to the second part of my Motion. The Motion proposes that an election be held no later than June 30. It may be helpful if I set out briefly what I think would happen between now and the end of June if, and only if, the House agrees today's Motion. The domestic committees of the House would be invited to consider the various matters set out in the report of the Speakership Committee, and the Senior Salaries Review Body would be invited to make a recommendation on remuneration, again, as suggested by the Speakership Committee. The House would then consider any recommendations put to it and make any decisions needed to allow us to hold an election in June. For example, the proposed Standing Order changes would be brought before the Procedure Committee, and then the House, for approval. From mid-May to mid-June nominations would open and candidates' statements would be prepared. As with the hereditary Peers' elections, the precise arrangements would be entrusted to the House authorities, under the Clerk of the Parliaments. The election itself would be held in late June; the Queen's approval of our choice would then be obtained; the results of the election would be announced in early July; and the new Speaker would take up their post.
	We are at the threshold of an important change. We have the opportunity now to enhance this House's central tradition—that of self-regulation—by choosing to elect a Speaker from our own number, a Speaker who will be manifestly independent and able to represent the interests of all the Members of our House, not one representing the views of the usual channels. As I have said before, I do not think it is appropriate for a government Minister to continue to be the Speaker of an independent legislative chamber. It is time to move on. We have the template and I very much hope that we will follow the example of the Select Committee on the Speakership and make this important change together and unanimously. I beg to move.
	Moved, further to the resolution of the House of 12 July 2005, that the Report of the Select Committee on the Speakership of the House of Lords (HL Paper 92) be approved; and that an election be held no later than 30 June 2006.—(Baroness Amos.)

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I commend the Leader of the House for the entirely reasonable way in which she proposed her Motion. I am delighted to join her in welcoming the report. I hope she agrees with me that it shows the great benefit of having second thoughts, as this report is considerably better than the original one which was published as far back as November 2003.
	This debate is therefore the culmination of a long-running saga. The loss of the Lord Chancellor has been a bitterly divided process and many Peers on all sides will be very sad to see a line of Lord Chancellors sitting on the Woolsack, stretching back to time immemorial, now being broken. I am one of those who does not believe that we were demeaned by having a Lord Chancellor named as our Speaker, any more than the US Senate is by having the Vice-President as its presiding officer. On the contrary, I have always positively welcomed the presence of the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack. It honoured the House and represented the House in Cabinet. We shall lose both of those now. So it would be right to pay more than a passing tribute to all those Lord Chancellors whose arms we see above and about us and who served this House so well.
	Also like many noble Lords, I hope that even now the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will agree to stay with us on the Woolsack for as long as he remains Lord Chancellor. Unfortunately, on page 12 of the evidence, he said:
	"Indeed, I think the norm should be that if you are ministerially in charge of a department you should be in that department to provide leadership to both civil servants and fellow politicians. I therefore regard it as my role to be in Selborne House where the Department for Constitutional Affairs is based".
	So there it is. The noble and learned Lord wants to go, no doubt to do better things than this House. But I hope he will still feel that this House is his scene. We shall always be glad to see him when he visits us—welcoming even—although I hope he brings with him far less legislation and far better legislation than he sometimes has done in the past.
	I say to those who share my sadness today that, whatever we feel, we cannot hold the noble and learned Lord here. We must agree to other arrangements now that he has said he wants to go. We must look to the future, not regret a gracious past. Of course, there is a small consolation in that the grand suite of offices in your Lordships' House currently occupied by the department will now be freed up for the use of Peers.
	The Select Committee, chaired so ably by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, has done a good job. I congratulate it and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, I agree with much of its report. I agree with the absolute central importance of self-regulation to the nature of this House. Its civility, courtesy, sense of proportion, intolerance of grandstanding and self-promotion—so much in contrast to daily conduct in another place—owe much to self-regulation. Without self-restraint we could not function. Because we have self-restraint, I believe we function outstandingly well.
	I agree with the noble Baroness that it is sensible to allow the Peer in the chair to offer the same advice to the House on procedure as any other noble Lord, but we will still, for example, continue to look to the Whips on the government Front Bench for their invaluable guidance. We on these Benches will do all we can to assist them. Indeed, all Peers should play their part.
	I welcome the committee's conclusion that the Leader of the House should continue to lead us at Question Time. As the House knows from earlier debates and my evidence to the committee, I think that it is extremely important that we do not inadvertently change the role of Leader of the House as a servant of the whole House as a by-product of this process. So I support this whole-House role and therefore cannot support the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton, unless she produces a brilliantly original argument when she moves her amendment.
	I am sorry that the committee did not go a further step and leave decisions on Private Notice Questions with the Leader. The committee feared that there was a risk of political bias. I disagree, and I still do not know why the committee ever thought there could be. Perhaps the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, will explain when he comes to speak. I have never known such political bias, or ever even suspected it. As Leader of the Opposition and leader of the party with most to lose if there was such a risk, I must tell the House that I strongly support the present system and the sense of fair play that has always been demonstrated by a succession of leaders.
	A whole-House role is being taken from the Leader, something I think unwise. The reality is that the Leader, as a Cabinet Minister, will always be in a far better position than a Speaker to know if there is an imminent event or announcement that would render a PNQ unnecessary. What it means in reality is that such decisions will no longer be taken in this House but by Mr Speaker in another place. For I can see few circumstances in which our Speaker would allow a PNQ that Mr Speaker had disallowed.
	I will not divide the House on this detailed matter, but I hope that before we elect a Speaker, the Leader of the House might agree to think further and go to the Procedure Committee to argue for the present system to stay. In essence I agree with the committee and the Leader of the House about the strictly limited nature of the role of our Speaker and the vital need, on which most of us agree, to protect self-regulation. So why am I proposing the amendment? The answer I hope by now is simple and understood by all. I cannot see that the work to be done justifies the creation of a major new post.
	Currently, we have a very part-time Lord Chancellor—that is, as Speaker—and a relatively active Chairman of Committees. When I look at the roles proposed for the new Speaker in the report, it is hard to see that they make up a full-time role. Most of what is proposed is to be taken from the Chairman of Committees, leaving him with much less to do. The risk is to end up creating two half-time jobs on full-time pay. What will people outside the House think of that?
	I have to say that to me everything points to the familiar office we now have—that of Chairman of Committees—assuming the limited additional roles relinquished by the Lord Chancellor. The committee has worked hard to carve out a role for an additional new post, but it has not convinced me. Yet what is proposed for this limited office is a dedicated staff, possible occupation of some at least of the Lord Chancellor's suite, a pension analogous to the Lord Chancellor's, and a salary appropriate, in the report's words, to that of the Chairman of Committees. Given that their functions would be roughly divided, that salary could not be less than £80,000—it could be considerably more—unless the SSRB decided that the salary of the Chairman of Committees should be cut. I find that inherently unlikely.
	Parliament, parliamentary salaries and parliamentary pensions are under scrutiny today as never before. People will naturally ask, if we were able to function without this expensive post in the past, why do we need it now? Frankly, I would feel uncomfortable answering that question, and I suspect so too would many Members of the House. So I suggest that, rather than jump into creation of a full-blooded new post, we try an evolutionary change—a word used by the noble Baroness in her opening remarks. Let us begin with the assumption that the Chairman of Committees and the Speaker be one and the same, just as the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker were one and the same too.
	If we find that the roles are indeed too onerous to combine in one office, then we can change that at a later date in the light of experience, building on this report. In the same light, the detailed question raised by my noble friend Lord Geddes in his amendment can be discussed between now and 30 June, if my amendment is accepted, and we can resolve the issue of a Deputy Chairman in the House Committee after due consideration. It is not an issue that needs to be resolved today.
	That is why, while agreeing with the Leader and the committee on most of its recommendations, I propose this modest but significant amendment. It is in line with the will of the House not to have a regulating presiding officer and with the will of the House to have an election. It builds on what we have and carries forward reform in a practical and economical way. That would be the common-sense House of Lords approach and, as such, I beg to move.
	Moved, As an amendment to the Motion standing in the name of the Lord President, in line 3, after "approved" to insert "except that the office of Speaker should be combined with that of Chairman of Committees".—(Lord Strathclyde.)

Lord McNally: My Lords, it is always extremely difficult to follow the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, at his most reasonable, because he is so persuasive. He was so persuasive when he tried to persuade this House to accept none of the reforms on which the proposal before us today is consequential. When plan A failed, he turned to plan B, which was to make our current Lord Chancellor the most loved Lord Chancellor, and certainly the most loved Labour Lord Chancellor, who has ever sat on the Woolsack. "Do not leave us, Charlie!" was his plaintive cry. Now that plan B has failed, we have before us plan C.
	I make it clear from these Benches that, like the Leader of the House, I will vote for the report and for none of the amendments. As is known, the troops behind me are as disciplined as any herd of cats that one could wish to find. I will therefore be marching into the "Content" Lobby with a hope and a prayer.
	There is one point on which I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. I read in the newspapers that the Lord Chancellor is contemplating taking up squatters' rights in his extensive accommodation. Perhaps I may quote a former Liberal leader who escaped the attention of the Sun. As Mr Gladstone said, "bag and baggage . . . out".
	I hope that we look at this report in its entirety. As the Leader of the House said, it does not please everybody. However, I have to say that it pleases me a lot. Those who read it will see that I was given a torrid time by the committee when I gave evidence, but I was amazed to see that most of the recommendations came very close to what I had been arguing. So I have great pleasure in endorsing the committee.
	We should think carefully about the role of the Leader of the House at Question Time. I would prefer to leave the responsibility with the government Front Bench because that works very well. The noble Lord, Lord Rooker, serves as a model, as he is decisive. The arrangement breaks down only if the Front Bench does not do its job. If government Front Benchers do their job, the whole House will accept it.
	I worry that once the House turns automatically to that chair for guidance and decisions, you will begin to get the role of a Speaker in this place. The full thrust of our evidence was to keep to self-regulation. I watch some of the old retreads coming into this place from the other place and almost wanting the discipline of the other place, which the Speaker provides. I have gradually, the longer that I have been in this place, begun to understand that self-regulation is one of our distinctive attributes. I look with suspicion at any proposal that moves from self-regulation to that chair. That is why I am very glad that the committee was supportive of that.
	As for the title, every time I come through that door I see a little notice that refers to the Lord Speaker, which seems to have been up there for donkeys' years without the world ceasing to turn on it axis. It is a perfectly sensible title—it says what it means on the tin. Although I could pick out bits of this report that do not go as far as I should like, or which go further, the report gives the House what the overwhelming majority of us have wished for—the ability to keep hold of our own affairs and to go in an orderly way to this new task. I hope that we shall resist all the other siren voices that we hear this afternoon. We should vote for the report and against all the amendments. We can move forward with a Fabian proposal—with "the inevitability of gradualness".

Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, I have spoken in the House most recently, on 12 July, about the Speakership, and I gave evidence to the Select Committee which is fully recorded in its report. Once again, I should indicate that there are differences of view among the Cross-Benchers, as among others, but I hope that what I say will be helpful to the House.
	There are three reasons why we should come to some decisions today. First, there is the fact that it will now be possible for the office of the Lord Chancellor to be held by a Member of another place, and we would then in any event have to elect a Speaker or take some other step to replace the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack.
	Secondly, we have already passed the Motion of 12 July last year. We relaunched the Select Committee to make recommendations on the role and responsibilities of the Speaker, thus setting of a process that has arrived at the finishing line—namely, an agreed report covering all those points. I pay tribute to the Select Committee and its chairman, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, for presenting the report, with which I very largely agree. I attach importance to the fact that it is a unanimous report.
	Thirdly, it is quite clear that the responsibilities of the Lord Chancellor have expanded as he holds the office of Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs; reference has been made to that. That may be why the Motion today seeks approval of the Select Committee report and also sets a timetable for the move to the election of a Speaker.
	Before turning to the amendments, I should like first to say that the passage of time and the arrival of the second report have not changed the key point—namely, the need to keep a self-regulating House and to avoid a situation in which the Speaker's role might risk prejudicing that. I want to emphasise that point, although we may have moved beyond it. The whole House is the master of its fate. I have made it clear throughout that I wish to avoid the slippery slope and that, in a self-regulating House, points of order or rulings by a Speaker are to be excluded. The present report is oriented strongly against going down that slippery slope, which is very welcome.
	Without prejudice to self-regulation, I was prepared to go a little further in my evidence to the Select Committee by accepting that the Speaker might give the same advice to the House—no more, no less—than the Leader of the House does now when there is excessive competition for supplementaries at Question Time. That still seems reasonable. However, the Select Committee, in its second report, has clearly opted for the status quo. If so, so be it! That illustrates the careful, not to say cautious approach to the role of the Speaker in the Select Committee and, I believe, in the House.
	I turn briefly to the amendments. On the first amendment, evidently it is the Chairman of Committees himself—who will speak shortly—who can best advise on the workload and the practical application. For myself, while I recognise that the role of the Speaker will be very constrained within the Chamber, I think it probable that his or her role outside the Chamber will steadily increase. The truth is that the role of non-political spokesman for the House at home and abroad and the educational role are now hardly done at all. I really think that we shall need both a Speaker and a Chairman of Committees. I am for the one-for-one proposal—out goes the Lord Chancellor, in comes the Speaker—and a minimum of disturbance of the other arrangements affecting the committees.
	Although I realise that the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, have not been moved, their subject is covered by the report and we can comment on that, and I shall do so very briefly. I would not like to pass up my first opportunity, after seven years in the House, of disagreeing completely with the noble Lord. On the title, the Select Committee's report is succinct and, in my view, convincing. "Lord Speaker" is the existing title—it is in the Standing Orders, in the Companion and in the Constitutional Reform Act. It should be kept. There is no need to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
	On the other point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett—namely, the question of the guardianship of the Companion—I incline to the view expressed by the Select Committee, and specifically in evidence to the committee by the noble Lord, Lord Cope of Berkeley, and by others.
	I therefore think that we should go ahead as the Motion proposes. However, life Peers also suffer from nostalgia. I am indeed sorry that we shall be ending the presence of the Lord Chancellor on the Woolsack, since this link with one of the oldest offices in our land is part of our history. I understand that perhaps the first Lord Chancellor, Angmendus, existed in one of the kingdoms of our land in 605 AD, although it is not recorded whether he had a woolsack. Let us at least hope that the office of Lord Speaker in this Chamber will have an equally long life—that is to say, until 3407 AD.

Lord Lloyd of Berwick: My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the Convenor of the Cross Benches, as always. It is almost exactly two years since the House debated our previous report, and the membership of the present committee is exactly the same as that of the previous one, except for being joined by—and, we would all agree, enriched by the presence of—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford and by the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, who is in his place.
	I start by thanking the fellow members of the committee. It was a great honour and pleasure to act as their chairman. I emphasise that the report before the House is not the work of one but of us all. We should be especially grateful for the help which was provided at all times by our Clerk. The House has moved slowly in the two years since 2004, but that is as it should be. Only if we move slowly in these important matters are we likely to reach a consensus—and consensus in a matter as important as this is surely highly desirable.
	At the end of his speech in 2004, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, hoped that the noble Baroness the Leader of the House would use the usual channels in an attempt to seek broad cross-party consent. He then added these words:
	"If we are to have a Speaker, how much better that the role be born out of consensus than be a child of division in this Chamber".—[Official Report, 12/1/04; col. 389.]
	I only hope he is still of the same view. That is certainly still my view, and I hope and suspect it is the view of the great majority of the House.
	It was on 12 July last year, as has been pointed out, that the House decided in principle that we should elect one of our own Members as Speaker in lieu of the Lord Chancellor. It has been our task to fill in the detail, not to say when that election should take place—that has always been a task for the House as a whole, and has been put before the House today.
	By our terms of reference we were specifically required to have full regard to self-regulation. In paragraph 7 of the report we have set out what we believe self-regulation means. It is my opinion—and that, I believe, of all the members of the committee—that none of our proposals departs in the least degree from the principle of self-regulation. In our previous report we followed the advice of the late Lord Williams of Mostyn in two main respects: first, we adopted his phrase that the Speaker should be,
	"the guardian of the Companion",
	and, secondly, we accepted his advice that the role currently performed by the Leader of the House at Question Time should be transferred to the Speaker.
	Those proposals found favour with a great many Members of the House, but it would be idle to pretend that they found favour with the House as a whole, and I do not do so. Clearly they did not. The trouble with "guardian of the Companion" was that it implied, even if it did not say, that the Speaker was to be the sole guardian. That—as I recall the noble Lord, Lord Cope, pointed out, as did many others—would have been inconsistent with self-regulation, because under self-regulation we are all guardians of the Companion.
	The role of the Leader at Question Time, when he or she acts on behalf of the House as a whole and not on behalf of a particular party, was seen by many Members of the House, during the debate following our last report, as in some way symbolic of self-regulation. To transfer that small but important role to the Speaker would, it was said, not only diminish the role of the Leader herself, but could be the beginning of a slippery slope that would end in points of order and a Commons-type Speaker, which none of us wanted. That was what we gathered from the debate as a result of our last report, so it was clear to us that if we were going to reach a consensus in the House we would have to think again, and that is what tried to do.
	At the start of our deliberation we came from very different standpoints. There were those who supported the original proposals as they stood, but there were those who supported the dissenting views expressed strongly by the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne. But gradually during our deliberation we inched towards a common view. I should not like the House to think that it was easy. Many different drafts were circulated. Almost every sentence in paragraphs 13 to 23 of the report was the subject of debate, but in the end we reached agreement, as set out in those paragraphs.
	The essence of the agreement was simply that, first, the Speaker's role at Question Time should remain exactly the same as the Lord Chancellor's role at present, and there should be no change in the Leader's role. Secondly and equally importantly, at other times the Speaker, the Lord Chairman and indeed the Deputy Speakers should have the same role as any other Member of the House in advising on matters of procedure. In footnote 12 on page 8 of the report, we gave a good example of how that might help the House. We did not see the very limited role of the Speaker outside Question Time as a slippery slope. Indeed, we did not see it as a slope at all. To some extent—this was confirmed by the members of the committee who had experience of being Deputy Speakers—that already happens.
	Whether that is right or not, we saw it as a package. We all agreed that if we allowed that package to be undone at all, the whole thing could unravel and that would be the end of any hope of consensus in the House today. Therefore, I was concerned by the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. However, she has been kind enough to write to me today to explain the meaning of her amendment, which is simply to honour the commitment that we set out in the report.
	Lastly, I come to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Of course I can see the attraction of combining the roles if possible. It would save money, but in our view it would not work. As the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, said in the 2004 debate, the Lord Chairman is already overloaded. The full extent of his workload is set out on page 33 of our first report and supplemented on page 35 of our second report. No doubt we shall hear shortly from the noble Lord himself. Whatever he may say, our view was clear: if we were to add the role which we see for the Speaker to the existing role of the Lord Chairman, heavy as it is, both roles would suffer.
	What is the new role that we foresee? It has already been well explained by the Leader. First is the ambassadorial role, representing the House overseas, which is currently undertaken by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell. In his view, it is an important role and is likely to increase in the future. Here, I very much agree with the views expressed by the Convener. Secondly, there is the representational role at home—what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, called the educational role—getting across to the public what the House of Lords is really for. Thirdly, and subsidiary to those, is the receiving of important foreign visitors. In our view, all those are worthwhile roles that could not really be combined with the existing duties of the Lord Chairman.
	I do not think that the public would regard it as extravagant to have in this House a Speaker and a Deputy Speaker. Even if one assumed that, at the outside, the net additional cost of the Speaker and any secretarial staff he might have was of the order of, say, £200,000—that is simply a figure plucked out of the air—that would still represent only a little over 1 per cent of the total wage bill of the House, which is currently £15 million. In any event, we surely ought not to let any question of cost, small as it is likely to be, determine what we decide today.
	I started by saying that I hoped that we would reach consensus on this matter. I end by saying that, if we are to have a Speaker, then I hope we will do it properly, and in a manner and style befitting the House.

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I declare an obvious interest, since many of the proposals in the report will affect me in my role as Chairman of Committees—although I hope that they will not affect me quite to the extent that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, suggested when he discussed salaries. I will therefore restrict my remarks on the proposals to practical matters.
	On the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, as I said in evidence to the Speakership Committee, if the only role envisaged for the Speaker is the minimal function of opening the House and sitting on the Woolsack during Questions each day, as the Lord Chancellor does at present, there might be some attraction in combining the offices of Speaker and Chairman of Committees. However, the proposal is open to two objections, one practical and one of principle.
	First, as the report makes clear, it is envisaged that the Lord Speaker, as has been said by many, will take on a greater range of functions than merely sitting on the Woolsack. He or she will have duties outside the Chamber, including a representational and educational role. That would be in addition to the job that I already do as Chairman of Committees. The two jobs could be in competition over the time needed to do them properly.
	Secondly and more importantly, there is an irreconcilable difference between the role of a Speaker, who is obliged to sit in silence on the Woolsack or in the Chair, and the role of the Chairman of Committees, who has to take part in debates, make Statements and answer Questions. The House will be aware that, when I present domestic committee reports in the House, I do so from the Front Bench; someone else has to sit as Speaker. I cannot be in two places at once—nor should I be. The functions of Speaker and advocate are different.
	The Speakership Committee has recommended that the Speaker should chair the House Committee. That is a good recommendation, but only if someone else acts as the spokesman of the committee in the House. In addition, presenting reports and answering Questions can, and does, become quite controversial at times. I do not mind that, but it would be inappropriate for the dignity of a Speaker to have to deal with such matters.
	Similar considerations apply to private Bills. The Chairman of Committees has a central responsibility both to advise the House on procedure and, with his counsel, to maintain the quality of private legislation in unopposed Bill Committees. It would be inappropriate for the Lord Speaker to take on a role in private legislation which the House expressly wishes to keep from him or her in public legislation. Should the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, be carried, therefore, I hope that a number of these issues would be reconsidered.
	I will leave it to others to speak to the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Barnett, but I shall speak briefly to the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton. In giving evidence to the Committee, I agreed with the idea that the Speaker should take the role of the Leader during Question Time. Since then, however, having read the report, I see the force of the argument that the Leader's role at Question Time has a symbolic significance, as she visibly represents the interests of the House as a whole. I am therefore ambivalent about this issue, and thought that I should make this clear, in case my original view was prayed in aid of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould of Potternewton.
	I am broadly in agreement with the proposals of the main report, particularly regarding the role of the Speaker within the Chamber. From my experience, it has often struck me as odd that the only person in the Chamber who is unable to assist the House when it gets into procedural difficulties is the person sitting on the Woolsack. The role for the Speaker set out in the report—that he should assist, but not rule—gives him no more powers than those already enjoyed by every other Member. Allowing him to intervene in this very limited way will not threaten the principle of self-regulation but should help to keep the business moving. I therefore support that recommendation.
	However, I have some reservations about the proposed role of the Speaker in relation to Private Notice Questions. I fear that there could be a temptation to test a new Speaker out by asking for a greater number of PNQs; I can only hope that this temptation will be resisted. The report gives the Speaker hardly any new powers in the Chamber and it would be unfortunate if, on his first day, his decision on a PNQ was challenged on the Floor of the House and he had to justify it from the Woolsack. I am not an expert on procedure in the House of Commons, but I understand that it is virtually impossible to challenge the Speaker's ruling on such Questions. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, nods in agreement. Should the House decide to give the Speaker a role in PNQs, I very much hope that it would give our Speaker similar protection to that given to the Speaker in another place.
	I agree with the report that it is desirable that each Deputy Speaker should normally undertake three hours' duty per week, but I disagree that this means that there should be a panel of 12 deputies. By my calculations, in a typical week when the House sits Monday to Thursday and a Grand Committee sits on two days, there are 27 slots of one and a half hours. If the Speaker sits on the Woolsack for two slots each day, as the report suggests, and the Chairman of Committees continues to sit on the Woolsack for one slot each day, only 15 of the 27 slots would be left. On this basis, I think that there is a need for only eight or nine active deputies, rather than the proposed panel of 12. The problem could be solved if one or two of the deputies were "inactive", as they are at present. I refer to the Government and Opposition Chief Whips who, although on the list, do not normally take on the duty.
	Incidentally, I think the recommendation that the Speaker have two slots of one and a half hours a day should not be set in stone. In my evidence to the committee, I suggested that the Speaker would probably want to be in the Chamber for important business and votes, so greater flexibility by both the Speaker and his deputies will be needed than at present exists.
	A number of less important points need addressing. One concerns the procession at the opening of the House. I hope that a proper ceremonial procession continues, as in my observation it is certainly popular with the onlookers in the Peers' Lobby. It should continue to follow the route it does now and should be led by a Doorkeeper, followed by the Mace, then the Lord Speaker; and, as now, Black Rod would join it in Prince's Chamber. I am sure the House would agree that that would be preferable to the mini-procession that I do as Chairman of Committees when opening the House in the absence of the Lord Chancellor, starting as it does only in Peers' Lobby. I make that point because I am sure there are other issues with which the Procedure Committee will be busy between now and June.
	It remains only for me to congratulate the committee on the thorough manner in which it has performed its task. While I do not necessarily agree with the detail of every recommendation, overall the report strikes a good balance between giving the Speaker the authority to represent the House and keep the business moving, and fully respecting the tradition of self-regulation which, I think, we all wish to preserve.

Lord Barnett: My Lords, I understand that I should speak to my amendments without moving them at this stage. I say to those noble Lords who, explicitly or otherwise, have criticised my amendments that I like them too much to criticise them in return. Like most noble Lords, I like consensus, but I prefer it round something that I have already agreed, again like most noble Lords. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, who knows how much I regard and respect him, would like his report to go through as it is, as would my noble friend Lady Amos. I am sure that she will forgive me for mentioning that, because, from the evidence that she gave to the committee, she seems to be opposed to the idea of a Lord Speaker; indeed, she specifically said that she prefers something else, as does the—I now understand—much loved present Lord Chancellor, my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer. He, too, is opposed to the idea of a Lord Speaker, as I am. I ought to explain to noble Lords why.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord McNally, that I have never before been described as a retread or a siren voice. After 23 years in your Lordships' House, I do not consider myself a retread at this stage. I have never been accused of being a siren voice because I love this place and I have never sought to do it any harm.
	Most speakers so far have overlooked the essential, central issue that the more we enhance the role of the Lord Peer on the Woolsack, the more we jeopardise the very self-regulation that we all want. That is why I am proposing to move the first amendment standing in my name. I very strongly agree with everything that the Select Committee says about the need for self-regulation. I doubt if anybody in your Lordships' House is opposed to the idea of self-regulation. However, I fear that if we carry on with a Lord Speaker, as the report suggests, that will do positive damage to self-regulation.
	My noble friend Baroness Amos and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, have spoken about the idea of having a Lord Speaker when there is a Speaker in another place. Paragraph 14 of the report refers to a "widespread concern" of a "slippery slope". I imagine that all of us would go along with that. On the other hand, what we do not want—and what nobody in your Lordships' House wants—is a Commons-type Speaker. My noble friend—if I may call her that, as she occasionally sits on my Bench—Lady Boothroyd is much loved by everyone and she was a tremendous Speaker in another place. Although she and the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill—who I am sure everybody wishes well and a quick return here—both wanted a Lord Speaker, I hope that they will accept that they were a little prejudiced by their own success in another place. At all costs we do not want a Speaker with anything remotely like the powers of the Speaker in another place. That is one of the main reasons why I am opposed to the idea and prefer the idea of a Lord or Baroness Presiding Officer.

Lord Barnett: My Lords, I respect the views of the noble Baroness, but I believe that it would confuse the situation even more if we had two Speakers, one in another place and one here.
	Paragraph 8 of the report states that there is,
	"overwhelming weight of evidence . . . against a House of Commons type speaker".
	The more we go along that path, the more danger there is. I hope that I have persuaded at least some noble Lords to accept the amendment when I eventually come to move it. I hope to see a majority for the amendment, but we will have to wait and see.
	I now move to my second amendment, which, again, is self-explanatory. The report has been much praised. I hope that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, and other members of the committee will not mind my saying that, despite the fact that they worked very hard on what is an excellent report, in one respect at least I found it both confusing and contradictory. I refer to paragraphs 9, 17 and 22.
	In paragraph 9, reference is made to the late Lord Williams of Mostyn, who was a wonderful leader of your Lordships' House. He referred to the need to have a "guardian of the Companion". In the report, the noble Lord, Lord Cope, said that that might imply that all responsibility would rest with the Speaker. That is clearly not the case. The Companion spells out very clearly that anyone—whether the Peer sitting on the Woolsack, the Leader of the House or anyone else who offers advice—can be overruled by your Lordships. Noble Lords do not have to accept the advice; we are talking about advice and not about an authoritative ruling which says, "It has to be that". It does not have to be that any more than we have to agree with every word, dot and comma of the report that we are discussing. This is a self-regulating House and we accept advice, as today we accepted the advice from my noble friend Lord Grocott. We did not have to accept it; indeed, at one stage I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Higgins, was going to object to it, as he could have done. Equally, we do not have to accept the advice of the Leader of the House, a Whip, or someone sitting on the Woolsack who tells us who is to speak next at Question Time. This is a self-regulating House. That deals with paragraph 9.
	My answer to the noble Lord, Lord Cope, is that there is no such implication that authority rests with the Peer sitting on the Woolsack. He simply offers advice; that is all that he can do under the terms of the Companion. One only has to read the Companion to recognise that that is the situation. Yet we are told in paragraph 22 that most interventions quite rightly comply with the rules and would continue to do so. Then I find a rather remarkable statement: on failure to comply with the rules, we are told that the Speaker may not be able to do the job any better—or, indeed, worse—than Whips on the Front Bench. In my experience, while Whips on the Front Bench may appreciate what the rules are, they are not always quick to advise the House that the rules have been broken. I do not believe that it is right to suggest that they would know better than someone sitting on the Woolsack who is advised by the Clerks of your Lordships' House under the arrangement that the committee suggested. Unlike the House of Commons, the Clerks sit a fair way from the Peer sitting on the Woolsack, but electronic procedures are recommended and I would welcome that. So whoever sits on the Woolsack would take the good advice that we always—almost always—receive from the Clerks in your Lordships' House. I never like to be too dogmatic about such matters.
	Paragraph 17, referring to the Peer sitting on the Woolsack, says:
	"Such advice should be strictly limited to . . . guidance".
	Of course, that is precisely what the phrase "guardian of the Companion" means. Anyone who reads the Companion must be clear that we are dealing only with advice from the Peer sitting on the Woolsack or from anywhere else. I would not dare to advise anyone what to do here, because noble Lords all have their own views, even if they seek consensus sometimes. In one sense, the idea about the Companion is rejected in paragraph 9 and partially reinstated in paragraphs 17 and 22. Therefore, I hope my second amendment will be acceptable to your Lordships.

Baroness Boothroyd: My Lords, the Select Committee deserves our appreciation for the work it has done over a long period, and I am grateful to it for its courtesy to me when I gave evidence. Not having spoken earlier in debates on this matter, I now seek to place on record some of my thoughts in dealing with the main issues in the report.
	Our debate could not be timelier. Last month the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, listed the two principles he believes should shape our future. They were,
	"the primacy of the House of Commons and the need for accountability of the second chamber".
	None of us disputes the former, nor need we fear the latter. The harder the Government try to make us more representative, the more influential we become, as Ministers and opinion outside Parliament are beginning to realise. But we have a problem, too. It is how best to adjust to changed circumstances in the way we manage our affairs. The terms of the report were narrowly drawn, and that was understandable. The House is jealous of its rights and privileges, and I applaud that.
	My perspective is conditioned by my experience as a Member of the other House in a number of capacities and by my confidence in the strength of our institution. I believe that the duties we entrust to our new Lord Speaker will enable us to conduct our proceedings more effectively and enhance our public standing at a critical juncture. A strong Speaker, acting within the rules, does not mean a weak House, as many imagine. A Speaker elected for his or her judgment, impartiality and sensitivity would not undermine our traditions or distinctive ethos as a civilised debating chamber, free from the tumult and rancour of another place. There is certainly no wish on my part to go down that road.
	The report's acceptance of the "slippery slope" argument poses a false antithesis, in my opinion. The principle of self-regulation is good, but I do not think it is any longer working as it should. The report fears that giving the Lord Speaker the power to remind Members of their obligations could lead to a Commons-type Speakership. I reject that. A Commons-type Speaker is unnecessary; it is incompatible with our traditions, and nobody wants it or would suffer it—least of all ex-Speakers of the Commons. The small changes advocated do not conflict with the need for self-regulation and old-fashioned courtesy which the report rightly sets such store by—quite the reverse. We do ourselves no service if we ignore some of the barnacles on the Companion to the Standing Orders and miss the opportunity to remove them.
	I listen regularly to your Lordships asking questions and making comments that have little to do with the business before the House. I observe Ministers doing their utmost to reply to detailed supplementary Questions that go well beyond the substantive Question on the Order Paper and for which we cannot expect them to be briefed. In my mind's eye, I visualise a library littered with ministerial letters answering questions which bear no or little relation to the substantive question that has been tabled. I submit that a little personal self-regulation would not go amiss in this respect.
	The other day I witnessed a very brave Government Whip remind one of your Lordships that he should be speaking to the amendment and not making a Second Reading speech. The Whip did so with great tact and gentleness, if with a rather pink face. But he got Brownie points from me.
	That is something that happens frequently and I do not think it should be the Government's responsibility to correct it. It is a matter for the whole House, not the Government. It is a test of our willingness to practise what we preach when we talk of self-regulation. The House will be better served if the limited functions of assistance and guidance are transferred to the Lord Speaker; if the functions of the Speaker were to be codified in the Companion, such assistance and guidance would not lead to poor conduct or challenge, because the ambience of this House is different from that of the other place.
	In this respect I would commend the supplementary memorandum from the Leader of the House to the Select Committee. As the noble Baroness rightly says, giving the Lord Speaker the limited functions currently undertaken by the Government Front Bench in guiding members merely involves,
	"someone else doing something which is already done".
	To use her examples, the Lord Speaker would point out if a Member was speaking to the wrong amendment, or overrunning in a time-limited debate. The very idea seems to have made the Select Committee shake in its shoes. The report tells us that enforcing such time limits is a "sensitive matter". The implication is that the Lord Speaker, who has won our confidence through election, who is impartial, and in whom there can be no conflict of interest, cannot be trusted with sensitive matters. It is something that I cannot accept and I do not believe that this House should accept it either.
	Let me turn to the representative role. Representing the House at home and overseas will become an important function for the future occupant of the chair. It is crucial that we get across to people, at home and abroad, the significant work carried out by this House. Much of that responsibility falls to the Chair. Having committed ourselves to the teaching of citizenship, there is substantial work explaining to foundations, to universities, to business, to commercial groups and the like what we do here and why it matters. There is an interest out there in our own country; that interest is growing and it needs to be met.
	The report speaks of conferences such as the Commonwealth, the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the European Union. I have absolutely no doubt at all that individual legislatures will be keen to have our Speaker meet with their constitutional committees and to address their plenary sessions to learn of the changes made and our role in this bicameral Parliament. I am not pretending that the same volume of invitations will come the way of the Lord Speaker as came to my predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord Weatherill, and me. But let me tell you this. Our Parliament may not receive the respect it deserves in some quarters of our society, but I know from personal experience that it is held in high regard by overseas legislatures who wish to learn more about our ways and means of doing business.
	I enter a caveat here. The report accepts the importance of the Lord Speaker in representing us outside the House and providing wider understanding of our work. I subscribe to that and can testify to its value. However, the first duty of the Lord Speaker is to this House when it is in session. I trust that whoever is elected will make his or her presence a priority, and be prepared to set aside non-sitting days and Parliamentary recesses to carry out representational functions, wherever they may be. With negotiation and advance planning with other bodies, I know it can be effectively accomplished.
	I welcome the recommendation that the number of Deputy Speakers should be reduced. I would prefer, for effective working purposes, that number to be three or four, and for them to be remunerated. The House of Commons manages quite well with only three deputies and a similar number should be sufficient for your Lordships' House. I have come to this conclusion because I envisage that a small panel of deputies, acting as a working group, would provide daily support and continuity to the Speaker and to the Speaker's office, as well as bringing a degree of continuity into this Chamber. I believe we would all be better served by a very small number working alongside the Speaker on a regular daily basis, with a short morning meeting with the Clerks so that together they can have a wash-up session on what happened the day before and go through the current day's business in preparation. There is no substitute for homework as far as I am concerned.
	Currently, the Principal Deputy Chairman is also chairman of the European Union Committee. As the report suggests, he seems to be paid for the little he does in the former role rather than for his heavy responsibilities in the latter. It would seem more sensible to abolish the office of Principal Deputy Chairman and provide proper remuneration for the chairman of the European Union Committee. The Chairman of Committees would retain the title in addition to being designated as Principal Deputy Speaker, with, as I say, a very small panel of deputies giving the daily support and continuity that both the Lord Speaker and this House should expect. Perhaps after a period of experience and reflection, the Procedure Committee may wish to look at that.
	I believe that an effective Lord Speaker will enhance the efficiency and prestige of this House at a time when what we say and decide here has never been more important. At the present time I am inclined to vote against all the amendments, with the exception of the amendment standing in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, although I think it is limited in its application. I urge the House to seize the opportunity and be not afraid.

Lord Steel of Aikwood: My Lords, I shall make three observations on the report—and in support of it, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Peston.
	First, the character of this Chamber differs markedly from the two in which I have served—the House of Commons and the Scottish Parliament—and should continue to differ markedly from those other two chambers. When the Life Peerages Act 1959 was going through Parliament, I was studying constitutional law at the University of Edinburgh. I remember still the sentence that the late Professor JDB Mitchell dinned into us about the House of Lords, because it came up as an examination question later. He said that the House of Lords was the only institution in the world kept efficient by the persistent absenteeism of the majority of its members. That of course was true—and is still true to a certain extent. But the fact is that the House is changing, is continuing to change, and the election of a Lord Speaker is part of that process.
	I firmly agree with the report's conclusions that none of those changes should alter the nature of our proceedings. Courtesy and self-regulation are the hallmark of this Chamber and mark it out as different. Frankly, I get a little concerned when I see some of my fellow refugees from the other place arriving here and bringing with them some of the unnecessary, petty party point-scoring, which is an inevitable part of an elected chamber. We do not have to impress our electorate, our constituency parties or the editor of our local newspaper. It is all entirely unnecessary. Because we are not elected, we are in a far better position when we stick to the arguments before us—even when they are of a partisan nature—rather than importing the sucks-yah-boo tendencies from the other place. As long as we retain our decorum, there is no need for an interventionist Speaker.
	Secondly, contrary to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, I believe that the role of the Lord Speaker will turn out to be more important outside the Chamber than within it. I want to quote what is probably the smallest paragraph in the report, paragraph 31, which says:
	"In addition to overseas visits the Speaker will take over the Lord Chancellor's role in entertaining visiting speakers and parliamentarians from abroad".
	I give the House a word of warning: that innocent little paragraph contains a real trap. When I became Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, I was well aware that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, quite rightly, regularly uses other people in public life to help to entertain its many visitors—for example, Mr Speaker, the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the most reverend Primate Archbishop of Canterbury or the Presiding Officers in Scotland and Wales.
	The burden in my case was, frankly, so unexpected that I concluded that there must be a cell of civil servants in the basement of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office saying to all visitors as they arrive, "Go ye unto Edinburgh and see this thing which has come to pass", because the flood was remarkable. I had only two deputies, and we all shared in that burden. However, on one occasion I remember that we had four lunches; I had to corral the convener of the education committee to entertain a visiting education minister.
	I seriously fear that that might become a much greater part of the Lord Speaker's role than the innocent little paragraph in the report suggests. On another occasion, I remember the Foreign Secretary asking me if I would mind entertaining the president of an African country. Since Robin Cook is, sadly, no longer with us and that president is no longer in office, I think that I can tell your Lordships that I found the president a complete pain in the neck—and I told the Foreign Secretary so afterwards. That was in happy contrast to having President Mbeki of South Africa visit us as part of his state visit.
	My point is that the role will, I fear, be much greater than the report suggests. The Lord Speaker will find him or herself having to host endless visitors. It will be important that their staff keep a note of the countries of interest to your Lordships, so that appropriate people can be invited on those occasions. I fear that future Lord Speakers will find themselves eating for their country as part of the job.
	My third observation is to support strongly the committee's conclusion in paragraph 28—and the evidence given to the committee by the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, and by my noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby—on the educational and public relations role of the future Lord Speaker. Let us be frank; the role of this Chamber really is not understood widely in the country. The reason is, partly, that we are only ever covered in the media when we are in conflict with the House of Commons or the Government, or both. Yet we have three distinct roles, which ought to be made clear to the public.
	First, there is the painstaking scrutiny and amendment of legislation, which we do rather well. Secondly, we hold high-level debates on subjects using the expertise in our midst, such as in our debate before Christmas on climate change. The other place cannot manage debates of that character. Thirdly, there is our important capacity to delay, or to require the elected Chamber to think again—a particularly important power during years when the government of the day happen to have an overwhelming, artificial majority in the other place, as has occurred during both the Thatcher and Blair governments. The Lord Speaker needs to be able to address multifarious audiences. I would like to see a future Speaker fronting a short DVD which could explain our role in a much clearer way and be distributed widely to schools, colleges, universities and libraries.
	As one of your Lordships has already said, that role has to be non-partisan. The 2003 report of the committee said that this person will need to be "someone of considerable stature", which makes me think that it may be an ideal job for a retiring bishop. What we need, in short, is someone who will be decently reticent in the Chamber and highly articulate outside it.

Viscount Bledisloe: My Lords, the more one listens to this debate, the more one recognises the wisdom of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in saying that we should accept the report in its entirety and reject all the amendments. I say this for two reasons. First, it is clear that as soon as you start picking at the edge of the report, it begins to unravel. If one person's point is taken, someone else's point goes the other way, and you start unravelling until suddenly the whole knitting falls apart. Secondly, many of the things for which amendments are being made on hypotheses are things that we could do in the future if those hypotheses proved true, but which we would find very difficult to reverse once they had happened. The clearest example of that is the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. Along with the noble Lord, I think anything that has a slimming-down effect is highly desirable, but we must not prevent this report working before it has been given a chance.
	The most common complaint made by Members of this House is that their work is not understood or appreciated outside the House. This report gives us an opportunity to have someone to deal with that; to give this House the proper explanation and publicity it should receive in public, both at home and in abroad. If you roll the two roles into one, you make it impossible to do that. If you allow two roles—those of the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees—you allow that to be tried. If that is a dismal failure, and no one wants the Lord Speaker to come and explain to them what we do or represent us overseas, in five years' time we could say, "These are only two half-jobs—amalgamate them". But if they are amalgamated from the start, the Lord Speaker will never have the opportunity to fulfil that role of representing, explaining and justifying us to the public. If you scupper that from the start, you will never be able to build it again.
	Let us accept the report, and let us, if any of these people's fears prove right, come back in three or four years' time and make some further adjustments to the situation.

Lord Higgins: My Lords, I am glad the noble Lord got in ahead of me, because I agree with every word he said. I join enthusiastically with those who have congratulated the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, on his chairmanship of the committee. He had an unusually difficult task. He chaired the original committee; then the assumptions the committee had been forced to make turned out not be valid, and he was asked to do the job again. I think he has done so in an extremely efficient and courteous way.
	I found myself also in a slightly strange position because, together with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chelmsford, I was the only new boy on the committee, which had already expressed very firm views on nearly all the subjects we had to consider. I am therefore glad that in the event, under the noble and learned Lord's chairmanship, the committee in fact changed its view quite radically on a large number of the issues on which it had been asked to report.
	I still deeply regret the fact that we will not have a Lord Chancellor sitting on the Woolsack, but it became apparent that there was a threat—I use the word advisedly—that the Government might appoint a Lord Chancellor in the Commons. In those circumstances the individual might not be prepared to serve, and as a result we would have to sort out the whole of this business at very short notice. But it is unfortunate that we have not managed to retain that title, given its historic significance.
	We were trying to deal with two problems. One was what you might call work-sharing, and the other was the question of self-regulation. So far as the first is concerned, paragraph 24 is crucial:
	"The evidence we have received suggests that there is a case for combining the role of the Speaker with some of the functions now performed by the Chairman of Committees. We have already indicated that the new Speaker should spend much more time on the Woolsack than the Lord Chancellor does at present".
	When I first saw the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde, I thought that he was simply supporting what the committee said, but almost immediately I realised that that was not the case. We were suggesting that the present role of the Lord Chancellor—which is minimal, although we thought that it should be undertaken more enthusiastically—and the work of the Chairman of Committees should be divided more evenly. In that circumstance, there are two jobs to be done.
	It is also the case—this is an important point rather ignored by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde—that some jobs now done by the Chairman of Committees would not be appropriately done by the Speaker, and we spell that out in some detail. But, perhaps more importantly, if the two jobs were carried out by only one person, that person would not have a deputy. Clearly there are circumstances when the person on the Woolsack has to be away or has other duties to perform. As was rightly pointed out by my noble friend Lord Geddes, the present role fulfilled by the noble Lord, Lord Grenfell, is quite separate and does not really provide back-up in any sense for whoever happens to be on the Woolsack. It is abundantly clear that if only one person were doing both jobs, there would certainly not be time for him to fulfil any of the important functions which many Members, and indeed the committee, see the new Lord Speaker fulfilling either within the Palace of Westminster or, perhaps more importantly, beyond.
	For all those reasons, I do not support the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde and I hope that, on reflection, he will feel that it is appropriate to withdraw it.
	There is also the whole question of self-regulation. I refer here to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Barnett. For 40 years now, depending on which sides of the House we are sitting, he has proposed amendments to which I have objected or I have proposed amendments to which he has objected. If noble Lords were to go through the Finance Bill records, I think they would find thousands of examples where that situation has existed. But I believe that the noble Lord is wrong to resurrect the idea of a guardian of the Companion. I suspect that once someone on the Woolsack is said to be the guardian of the Companion, inevitably—this point was made by my noble friend Lord Elton—he will become so, and that will lead us towards a House of Commons-type Speaker, to which many of us are fervently opposed. We need to bear that point in mind.
	I turn to the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness and the whole question of self-regulation. I believe that Question Time is now working a great deal better than it ever has done during my time in the House because the Front Bench is more active. Those on the Front Bench are occasionally a little dogmatic. I think that they should phrase their interventions in terms of reflecting the will of the House rather than just saying, "It is now the Liberals' turn", as someone said the other day, or whatever it may be. That is an important aspect, and I profoundly believe that it is right to leave Question Time as it is. We do not want a House of Commons-type Speaker intervening at Question Time.
	The other situation where self-regulation can be rather difficult is on occasions when the Government Chief Whip indicates that, in order to finish at a reasonable hour, each of us should speak for, say, 10 minutes. The reality often is—particularly if one is waiting to speak next—that the person on his feet does not stick to that rule. I do not think that any Member does it with malice aforethought. I think they do it for two reasons: either they did not notice what time they got up and therefore do not realise how long they have been going; or perhaps they are reading their speech and are quite incapable of bringing it to a conclusion unless they get to the end.

Lord Crickhowell: My Lords, I want to make only one general point and raise one specific issue. The general point can be very quickly made because it was admirably made by the noble Viscount, Lord Bledisloe, and by my noble friend Lord Higgins. I agreed with almost everything they said. This is one of the very rare occasions when I cannot support my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. Having listened to the all speeches in the debate, I have been forced to one clear conclusion—that I should support the report of the committee so admirably chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick. Once you start accepting one differing argument you are led down a path of disruption and fracture that I think will lead us into a great deal of trouble. I will therefore warmly endorse the support of the committee.
	The general point has already been raised in a rather tentative way and I would like some answers on it. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde gently teased the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor about a once-stated view that he would like to be out of this place and in Selborne House, which I believe is where his office is. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, also ribbed the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor a little on this. Paragraph 50 of the report before us states:
	"The rooms recently occupied by the Lord Chancellor, his Permanent Secretary and his private office are likely to provide more than enough space for the Speaker and any staff, and we leave it to the Administration and Works Committee to settle the arrangements".
	I would like to know whether the arrangements have been settled or whether they are likely to be settled in the near future. Surely the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, having decided to remove himself from his historic role, cannot want to retain the perks of his spacious accommodation but will, like all other Cabinet Ministers, be content with the relatively modest offices that they occupy.
	Those who have been Cabinet Ministers in another place will know that along the Cabinet Office corridor there are a number of perfectly useful and acceptable rooms. In my time—and I believe it is the case today—Cabinet Ministers did not feel they had to have their permanent secretaries, staff and assistants with them in this place. It would come particularly ill from the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, who has told the Law Lords that they must move to not very salubrious premises on the far side of Parliament Square. I hope that having taken that decisive bid for leadership, he will now follow the route that he has set and quickly make these spaces available—and not just for the new Lord Speaker. Incidentally, I hope he will be a Lord Speaker and not a presiding officer which alarmingly reminds me of the Welsh Assembly.
	I hope that the Lord Chancellor will do that because, within the last few weeks, two committees of this House have had to sit outside this building because there are not enough committee rooms available. I hope that we will receive an assurance that the spaces will be made available and that we may have some additional committee room space in this House.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, he will attend other outside functions as well, whatever they may be. I do not find this at all convincing. We are trying to find reasons for a post which is not justified. As we have heard, this person will be paid a large salary. The committee of the noble and learned Lord Lloyd originally said £100,000. They back-pedalled on that and said, "Let somebody else decide". But he will require a staff and everything else. And then where would his premises be? As my noble friend Lord Crickhowell says, they will presumably be in the Lord Chancellor's Department in the House of Lords. As the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor is now a departmental Secretary of State with premises outside your Lordships' House, he cannot be expected to need or retain the use of rooms the purposes of which he has discarded. I do hope that we will be told that the Lord Chancellor's premises in your Lordships' House will be vacated by the present incumbent and made available for his successor.
	I agree with my noble friend Lord Strathclyde. There cannot be work for both a new Speaker and a Lord Chairman. Not only would that be extravagant but, especially after the noble and learned Lord's report, there would be nothing of importance for the new Speaker to do. I hope that your Lordships will agree with the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Strathclyde.
	The fact is that we have all been put into this desperate situation of manipulation in order to try to find a way around the unnecessary and tragic problem of the constitution yet again being assaulted. The Government call it modernisation, but it is not modernisation. It will not be an improvement and everyone knows that things will not be better. It is, yet again, an example of the Government wrecking the constitution.
	There is one slender ray of encouragement. My noble friend Lord Strathclyde quoted the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, as saying that he wanted to "be in his Department". That is what my noble friend Lord Strathclyde understood. I will just quote what the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said in evidence to the first committee of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd. He said:
	"I make it clear I will go on doing the job of Speaker of the House of Lords for as long as the House of Lords want me to do it".
	The House likes the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor and I hope—and I am sure that we all hope—that he will go on doing it for a very long while.

Lord Barnett: had given notice of his intention to move, as an amendment to the Motion standing in the name of the Lord President, in line 3, after "approved" to insert "except that in carrying out the duties recommended in paragraph 17 the Lord on the Woolsack should act as guardian of the Companion.
	 The noble Lord said: My Lords, I gather that the noble Lord, Lord Elton, had in mind to move a manuscript amendment to include the word "a" in this amendment, which I think would make it more amenable to your Lordships—but where is he? He had it in mind, so he informed me, to move an amendment to my amendment to turn it into "a" Companion, not "the" Companion—

On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 5) shall be agreed to?
	Their Lordships divided: Contents, 132; Not-Contents, 176